Jim Davis

James E. Davis is an American university administrator. He has served as the 31st president of the University of Texas at Austin since 2025.

Davis started his career as a cryptologist for the United States Navy. He received a bachelor's degree in history from UT Austin in 1996 and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1999. He worked as a briefing attorney for Alberto Gonzales on the Supreme Court of Texas and spent 14 years practicing law for Locke Lord. He worked for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as a deputy attorney general for civil litigation before joining UT Austin as vice president for legal affairs in 2018. He was later promoted to senior vice president and chief operating officer in 2023. He was named the sole finalist for the full-time position in July and became the university's president in August. Davis is the first president at UT Austin in over 100 years to come from a non-academic path.